Re: Coke/Pepsi Contracts in High School

By contract I mean an official contract between a beverage corporation and your school district. I'm fairly certain your school didn't have a contract with Coke. The Hillsboro school district for instance signed a contract with coke for $3million. The district would get the money up front and in return the district can only sell coke products. It extends as far as faculty meetings or luncheons and serving only Coke products. There is one machine for every 200 students, and part of the contract assumes that each student will consume some 50 bottles a year. There are even machines at elementary schools.

There is a moral issue at hand in the case of the Hillsboro School District. The public school budget has been slashed multiple times and recently took a severe blow, so in the absence of state funding, where is the school to find money? More and more school districts are turning to contracts such as the Coke contract in Hillsboro to get by. But at the same time, what are we doing to these kids' diets, if they're lured daily by that lit up coke machine.

: We had a coke machine at our school if that counts. I really didn't think too much of it. We had an old machine that people could steal the bottles out of, and so it was replaced with a shiny bright red one. I disliked that this giant red machine had to sit in our common room asking us to buy its products, but I think you start to become immune to things like that this when you see so many machines around.

: I must admit I am much more affected by the General Mills and Kelogg relationship and universities. I think it is false representation of the porduct when it is placed in a bin that is not properly disclosed. There are three brands that are eaten here: General Mills, Kelogg, and Post. Post gets no recognition what so ever, and then excpet in Wilder, Kelogg hosts all product placement. Schools should fairly represent the companies that they are buying from, and place general mills cereal inside general mills boxes.